Over the last decade a multitude of screen surfaces with different resolutions have emerged. Also, some viewing devices have broadband access, while others have limited access. Those two properties don't always correlate. To serve this heterogeneous group of devices with the same content over a limiting network, scalable video codecs have focused on offering quality layers, generally based on resolution. The base layer comprises the low frequencies, suitable for small screens, and each quality layer adds more and higher frequency components. A device with a small screen only requires a base layer, while larger screens need more quality layers, and hence, more bandwidth.
This approach does not benefit devices with large screens and limited bandwidth. Scalable video codec's base layers are not suited for large screens. They make the video look blurry, due to the low frequency aspect. The human perception of quality does not only look at resolution. We perceive ‘simplified’, but high frequent versions of an image better than blurry, ‘complex’ versions, e.g. as in cartoons. Although almost all texture information is lost, sharp edges are kept. A cartoon still looks like an appealing version of reality—much more so than a blurred video with the same amount of bits (in the information-theoretical sense).